Christmas Dog Shrug pattern

I always prefer to work from someone else's patterns. I was running out of time, and this one was a great idea, but would have taken too long.

This was written specifically for Roxy, a 6-pound Yorkie mix. I used Red Heart Christmas yarn--red with gold.

I didn't write down everything exactly, but this is pretty close to what I did. (I guess you could call this an Elizabeth Zimmerman type pattern...even though I don't like her style).

Cast on 16 stitches and make 1.5 inches of K2, P2 ribbing.
Then: increase 1 stitch for the next 10 rows.
Garter stitch until you are 2.5 inches from the full length. (Roxy's version is 16-18 inches total).
Then decrease 1 stitch for the next 10 rows.
Then K2, P2 for 1.5 inches.

Sew up the ribbing + a couple of rows of garter stitches on each side. Put on dog, and see how long it lasts!

Adapt this to your dog/any yarn:
measure around the dog's lower front leg--this gives you the width of the bottom of the shrug

measure from the dog's lower leg, across back to similar place on other front leg--this gives you the total length

Works in progress, sort of

Here are some of the things I have been working on lately. The green bag was an experiment that failed. I like the shape of it (Cascade Luna yarn-fast!) but the handle doesn't work at all. The original pattern had 2 handles but I thought this would look better. It looks nice but is totally non-functional.

Home Ec Workshop sells the plastic daisy Crystal Palace needles. They are cheap, light, and fabulous. I almost like them as much as addi turbos. I bought 6 more pairs yesterday.

The orange sweater is an unfelted dog sweater. The yarn is kettle dyed--my favorite. It's too big unfelted, but I am afraid it will shrink a lot in the washer. I tend to NEVER want to make swatches.

The pink and brown sweater is for Sissy--also to be felted. It is made from Paton's Soy--which is a horrible yarn I can't recommend. The colors are beautiful, but the entire time I worked on this, my hands felt greasy. I talked to someone else who used this yarn, and she was of the same opinion--beautiful colors but feels terrible when you work with it. It also feels a little bit itchy to me.

Easy Dog Sweaters

This dog sweater pattern is so easy and fast I have made 3 sweaters since Saturday.

#1 knit on 15 addi turbo circular with Homespun for Sherman--followed pattern fairly closely and results were a sweater that was very short, even for my toy sized dog

#2 knit on 17 needles with fabulous, almost my new favorite Rowan big knit in color=storm (black and white, what else) pattern adapted in the following ways:
many more rows added after initial row of ribbing
decreased using k2 together instead of PSSO (which I suck at)
added many rows after the leg holes
results=fabulous sweater that looks good on Monkey (see above) but could be longer.

#3 knit on 15 needles with some Lion Brand chunky acrylic--similar adaptations in pattern with the addition of a neck ruffle
results=ok looking sweater that is a little tight and a little short for Sissy